Platform
Modules
By sector
By sector
By standard
Blog
News
Events
AFAP-03
Materials-testing laboratories that run the test, and the suppliers and national Technical Authorities that commission it under a NATO contract or tender
AFAP-03 (printed AFAP-3) is NATO's tube-furnace test method for scoring a material's fire effluents into a single TOXICITY INDEX, used to screen candidate materials before selection.
AFAP-03, printed on its own cover as AFAP-3, is a NATO Allied Publication that defines a laboratory test method: how to burn a small specimen of a material in a tube furnace and turn the gases it releases into a single number, the TOXICITY INDEX. It is the third of a five-part AFAP series that NATO uses to screen candidate materials for fire hazard before they go into military applications: AFAP-1 sets the pre-selection policy, AFAP-2 measures smoke generation, AFAP-3 measures toxicity, AFAP-4 measures surface spread of flame, and AFAP-5 measures heat release rate. Nations record their agreement to use the series in STANAG 4602, which is the agreement that gives AFAP-3 force; read on its own it creates no obligation, and it reaches a supplier the way any Allied Publication does, "in relation to an invitation to tender or a contract in which it is incorporated."
A conditioned specimen, weighing (1.000 ± 0.050) g, is burnt for a fixed 20 minutes in a silica combustion tube at each of two temperatures: 800°C for eight gases (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen bromide and hydrogen cyanide) and, conditionally, phenol; and 350°C for formaldehyde and acrolein. The effluent is trapped either in a 40-litre gas bag or bubbled through impinger solutions, analysed by one of a fixed set of permitted techniques per gas (FTIR and ion chromatography are the primary choices for most), and the measured concentration of each gas is scaled to what 100 g of the material would produce in 1 m3, divided by a fixed "fatal for a 30-minute exposure" concentration for that gas, and summed across every gas analysed to give the TOXICITY INDEX. Phenol, the eleventh gas, is only added to the sum if the index from the other ten comes out between 6 and 10; below or above that band it is not analysed at all.
The document is careful to frame the result correctly. It "provide[s] comparisons between candidate materials, but do[es] not predict the behaviour of the materials, or combinations of materials, in actual fire conditions," and its own scope clause states the index "should not be interpreted as an assessment of toxicity hazard under actual fire conditions." It also excludes, by design, acute mental incapacitation effects, delayed or long-term toxicity, and the toxicity of particulate combustion products - the gas list is a pragmatic set chosen for a general assessment, not an exhaustive toxicology.
Colorimetric gas detector tubes are banned outright, and so is using elemental analysis (testing for chlorine, bromine, fluorine, nitrogen or sulphur and inferring a gas from the element) to decide whether a gas needs analysing at all - both have produced false negatives in practice. And phenol specifically cannot be collected in the gas bag: it condenses on the bag walls and understates the result, so when it is analysed it has to be by liquid injection from an impinger solution.
Because the whole point of a TOXICITY INDEX is that one laboratory's number means the same thing as another's, the document is unusually specific about the rig: combustion tube dimensions and tolerances, a thermocouple calibrated to IEC 60584-2, water of the grade set by ISO 3696, an air supply at 2 litres/minute, and a furnace whose temperature profile has to be measured against a fixed envelope on first use, after any repair, and at least once a year. Every gas is measured twice per run, and if the two determinations differ by more than a set tolerance the laboratory runs two more specimens rather than averaging the discrepancy away. An inter-laboratory round-robin already exists for two of the harder analyses, hydrogen fluoride by ion chromatography and phenol by HPLC, which is the closest the document comes to giving a reader outside confidence in a result.
The document fixes what a test report has to contain: laboratory and supplier identity, test dates, a full material and specimen description (including coatings, NATO stock numbers and any prior test history), the collection and analytical technique used for each gas with its detection limit, any gas not tested, ignition and burning observations, every intermediate value, the final TOXICITY INDEX, and the fixed caveat that "these results relate only to the behaviour of the specimens of the material under the particular conditions of test." An optional set of datasheets, cross-referenced to STANAG 4602's Materials Fire Characteristics Data Sheets, is one accepted way to record it.
AFAP-03 is published by the NATO Standardization Office and listed in the NATO Standardization Document Database, free of charge. NATO's documents are not sold by ComplyTrain and we host no copies of them.
AFAP-03 governs a laboratory test, not a management system, so the burning, the gas analysis and the TOXICITY INDEX calculation stay exactly where they are: with a competent test laboratory and its apparatus. There is nothing in that work a document platform performs.
What ComplyTrain does is hold the paperwork around it: the internal test procedure and any specimen-handling instructions built on AFAP-03 as controlled documents, the furnace temperature-profile and thermocouple calibration records the annual and post-repair schedule calls for, training and competency records for the analysts running the permitted techniques (IC, HPLC, GC/MS, FTIR), and the test reports themselves, held with their fixed required fields, as evidence a Technical Authority or an internal auditor can be shown on request.
What ComplyTrain does not do: it does not run the furnace, operate the analytical instruments, or calculate a TOXICITY INDEX. That work stays with the laboratory. Which fire-hazard tests a given programme requires, and what TOXICITY INDEX value is acceptable, is set by the contract and the customer's quality clause, not by us. See the standards explorer for what sits alongside AFAP-03 in the AFAP series and the wider defence catalogue, and talk to us about how ComplyTrain can support the evidence trail your contract actually requires.
Tell us how you need to work with AFAP-03 and what you need from it. We will come back to you about what ComplyTrain can do.
Thank you. Your list is on its way to your inbox, and we will come back to you on what working with these standards in ComplyTrain involves, usually within one business day.
AFAP-03 (printed AFAP-3 on its own cover) is a NATO Allied Publication that defines a tube-furnace test method for measuring the toxicity of the gases released when a material burns, expressed as a single TOXICITY INDEX. It is the third document in a five-part AFAP series used to screen candidate materials for fire hazard before they are chosen for a military application.
Not by itself. Interested nations record their agreement to use it in STANAG 4602, and it reaches a supplier only where a tender or contract in which it is incorporated says so. Whether it applies to a given programme is a contractual question, not a general one.
No. AFAP-03 describes no certification or accreditation scheme; it fixes how a test is run and its result reported. A material's TOXICITY INDEX is a comparative screening figure, and the document says plainly that such publications provide comparisons between candidate materials rather than predict their behaviour in an actual fire.
All three are reaction-to-fire test methods in the same NATO series, but they measure different things: AFAP-2 measures smoke generation, AFAP-3 measures the toxicity of fire effluents, and AFAP-4 measures surface spread of flame. A material's fire-hazard profile is normally built from more than one of them.
Edition 3, promulgated 30 July 2010, effective on receipt. It superseded AFAP-3 Edition 2.
From the NATO Standardization Document Database, which lists it free of charge. NATO's documents are not sold by ComplyTrain and we do not host copies of them.
One system for the whole compliance programme. Start with the module you need most.
Collect information the same way every time, and decide in advance what happens next.
Know whether your controls are operating, not just whether a policy says they exist.
Turn the compliance work you already know about into a plan with owners, dependencies and dates.
Know what you can offer, and hold the evidence behind every configuration you offer it in.
Eight built-in reports across every module, scheduled, delivered, and filed where the evidence lives.
The sector news that matters to your organisation - read and rated by AI, and delivered as a scheduled digest in your own language.
AI reads the tender pack and pulls out the requirements, deadlines and rules - then helps you draft the response from your own approved content, with you reviewing every step.
One current register of the suppliers and partners you depend on - each risk-assessed, re-assessing itself on schedule, and wired straight into your risk register.
See every requirement you face - across every standard, plus your own contracts and policies - traced to the documents, evidence and processes that satisfy it.
Identify, score, treat and review your risks in one place - with AI to help anyone run a proper assessment, and a defensible trail behind every decision.
Assign training, prove it was understood, and hold the competence records an auditor asks for.
Draft compliance documents with AI, keep every version under control, and export them beautifully branded - all in one place.
Audits, corrective actions, processes and approvals in one quality system, organised around ISO 9001.
Medical device manufacturers operate under more regulatory pressure than almost any other sector outside pharmaceuticals. The rules govern how you design a device, how you make it, how you track it after it ships, and how you respond when something goes wrong.
Learn how EU dual-use export controls apply to encryption, sensors, and software, how classification works under Annex I, and why sending source code by email can count as an export.
A practical way to turn in-your-head risk management into a register that survives staff turnover and answers the risk questions now showing up in tenders.